Poverty/Inequality Update #2

An insightful analysis of trends in the U.S. from 1960 to the present describe the community profile of poverty that we see today.  This analysis is presented in detail in the book “Coming Apart” by Charles Murray.  This book came to my attention as a result of a Charlie Rose  video interview of Charles Murray shown in my OLLI course, “What’s Wrong/Right With America” led by Professor Ben O’Neal.  It’s interesting because there has been a strong liberal slant to the course but Charles Murray describes himself as a libertarian.  While it might be claimed that the conclusions reached in “Coming Apart” could be interpreted as having a right-winged bias, this is unlikely because every point made is derived from extensive data obtained from government sources such as the Census Department and Health and Human Services.  While, from a political viewpoint, one may or may not agree with the conclusions reached by Murray, it’s hard to see how the picture painted by these data can be denied.

It’s not possible for me to provide a complete summary of the entire data set here so I encourage reading “Coming Apart” for anyone interested in gaining full appreciation of the quantitative information that underpins the brief summary that I am about to present.  While Charles Murray’s narrative is an abstract of the vast data sets evaluated, my summary is a further abstract of the summarized body of information contained in “Coming Apart”.  As such, it should be understood that I will only highlight key points judged to be important facts in discussing the current state of poverty in the U.S. and how it might be managed.

Murray begins the book with an in-depth analysis of the formation and makeup of socioeconomic classes in the U.S. Although very interesting, that lengthy analysis will have to be left to those reading the book.  However, we can compare changes that have taken place over the last half century in a prototype lower-middle class/poor white community (“Fishtown”)

to similar changes in a prototype upper-middle class white community (“Belmont”). The following observations are strongly supported by the data presented.  Racial bias is not a factor here since all of the analyses presented by Charles Murray are based strictly on white community statistics.  Murray makes the point that, although not presented, minority data sets are qualitatively similar and mirror the white.  Results are presented within the framework of four major virtues (honesty/integrity, industriousness, marriage, and religiosity) emphasized by the founders of our country as being essential for the success of a nation based on individual freedom and responsibility.

1. Honesty/Integrity -  There has been an increasing rate of imprisonment of white Fishtown residents from 213/100,000 in 1974 to 957/100,000 in 2004.  Meanwhile, there has been little or no change in very low figures for Belmont over that period, i.e., 13/100,000 to 27/100,000.  Both violent crime and property crime rates mirror the above,  although crime has declined a bit in the past 10 years.

2.   Industriousness - The percentage of white males ages 30-49 not in the labor force in 1970                 

      were similar in Fishtown and Belmont, both being less than 5%.  While that percentage           

      increased only very slightly over the ensuing 50 years in Belmont and remained under 5%, a 

      steady increase occurred in Fishtown more than doubling by 2010.  While over that 50 year 

      span more women entered the work force, heads of white households, regardless of gender,         

      working 40 hours or more per week remained fairly constant in Belmont at around 90% but  

      fell markedly in Fishtown from above 80% in 1960 to around 60% in 2010.

3.   Marriage - This particular virtue, among the four major virtues emphasized by our founders

      as being essential for success of the nation, has suffered the greatest erosion in the last half     

      century.  While this topic is a complex of many key factors including career ambitions, child

     rearing, attitudes toward  extramarital sex and other important gender issues, the extensive

     data presented by Charles Murray will be left to the reader.  For present purposes, I’ll simply

     mention one bottom line finding.  “Among all whites ages 30-49, only 13 percent were not 

     living with spouses as of 1970.  Twenty years later, that proportion had more than doubled, 

     to 27 percent - a change in a core social institution that has few precedents for magnitude

     and speed.”   While both Belmont and Fishtown were similar in this statistic in 1960, 95%

     and 85% by 2010 the proportions were approximately 85% and  50% respectively.  While the 

     causes and consequences are both far-reaching and complex, it is my opinion that this holds

     the key to understanding the socioeconomic decline of the poor in the last half century.

4. Religiosity -  Rather than meaning devoutly religious, the founders used the tern religiosity to

    imply cultural emphasis on morality and the building of social capital.  Since a large portion of

    those activities that build social capital such as philanthropy, volunteering and community

    service occurs in a religious context, religious attendance can be used as a surrogate

    measure for these community bonding activities.  One data set compares the percentage of

    whites ages 30 - 49 who regularly attended church in Belmont and Fishtown.  In 1970, the

    figures were 65% and 55% respectively.  By 2010 both declined in parallel to approximately

    53% and 40% respectively.

So, the composite picture we see is that in the last half century, those virtues believed by the founders of our country to be essential for the ultimate success of a democracy based on individual freedom and responsibility remained relatively stable in upper-middle class communities but declined precipitously in lower-class communities.  It is in these communities where poverty exists and regardless of what metric one uses to define poverty, helping people climb out of poverty must address the complex web of issues that has led to the decay of communities like “Fishtown”.  The decline of the traditional family unit, including all of the problems that arise in single parent households, e.g., inadequate  parenteral supervision, lack of positive role modeling, corruption of youth due to lack of moral values as well as susceptibility to drugs and alcohol are major issues that must be addressed.  Simply providing welfare payments to the poor hasn’t done the job and won’t do the job nor will efforts to redistribute wealth.  The people of “Fishtown” need to regain self esteem, to be given the opportunity to work toward self-actualization and regain a sense of responsibility commensurate with living successfully in a free democracy.  Simply handing them money doesn’t accomplish this.  To the contrary, that strategy could be doing more harm than good and, as such, is likely to be part of the problem that helped decimate “Fishtown”.  A rebuilding or strengthening of the four virtues is vitally needed. Rebuilding of the family structure, education in many areas including moral and social responsibility, vocational training and work opportunities in order to earn a living as well as self respect and a feeling that they are progressing toward self actualization will be key.  Free handouts from the politicians, at best, provides only a temporary fix.  Our nation needs a carefully conceived plan to address the chronic problem.  Politics as usual and the temptation to buy votes must be rejected in favor of a true problem solving approach where specific goals are defined and best methods for achieving those goals identified.  Once again, I would urge an open and honest approach such as that described in “A Path To The Gold” to devise an overall plan to attack poverty, an issue that is far deeper than economic inequality.  My personal feeling is that major emphasis should be on rebuilding and supporting strong, 2 parent, family units among the poor.  Certainly, direct government financial support will be needed for the disabled but financial aid for the able bodied would be more beneficial if earned through a combination of work assignments and training/education.  With a strong, 2 parent family community structure in place, renewed commitment to high standards of integrity and industriousness should be attainable.  Finally, I would urge our politicians to recognize something that kindergarten teachers, beginning psychology students and animal trainers are all well aware of.  Behavior is modified by rewarding what is desired not by rewarding what is not desired.  Rewarding people for not working or unmarried women for having more children is exactly the wrong approach and is just as baffling to me as the practice of rewarding those who break the law by entering our country illegally.  Our politicians simply need to put an end to rewarding bad behavior even if it means loosing votes.  Meanwhile,  as private citizens, we can help significantly by supporting volunteer efforts to alleviate the stresses on the poor and enhance their education.  Of particular importance, we need an effective national program to solve the very serious problem of substance abuse.  The very complex issue of poverty stems from an equally complex trend of a breakdown in our nation’s ability to sustain those four key values specified by our founders.  The complex issue of chronic poverty will only be effectively addressed when that trend is reversed.